September 22, 2011

National Opera sets sights on Linnahall

The National Opera has come out in support of a recent proposition to move the Estonia Concert Hall to Linnahall, a dilapidated former sports and concert arena that sits on Tallinn's coastline.

The current Estonia Concert Hall, dating from 1913, loses out on big productions every year because the building's stage is half the size of foreign opera houses, the opera's director, Aivar Mäe, told ETV.

"We are the last nation in the Baltic Sea shoreline to not have a proper opera house," said Mäe. "If the Linnahall investment project does not work out, since the economy isn't stellar in either the US or here, then we could do something very positive on a state level with that colossus.“

The city could provide the property and the state the investment, he proposed.

Originally built for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, the now decaying Linnahall functioned as a concert hall, night club, rental office space and ice skating center before closing in 2009.

In 2010, the city government announced that it had struck a deal with Tallinn Entertainment LLC, a company founded by Ronald S. Lauder, CEO of cosmetics giant Estee Lauder, to develop the facility. However, more than a year later signs of construction have yet to materialize.

On September 8, City Council Reform faction leader Õnne Pillak sent an open letter to Taavi Aas, deputy mayor of the Centre Party-controlled city government, demanding that the status of negotiations with the project's US partners be made public.